


The Mudblood’s Daughter

by HeavenlyGingerlily



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Estella Rose Malfoy (original Character), F/M, romance/tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:22:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27697562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeavenlyGingerlily/pseuds/HeavenlyGingerlily
Summary: Almost a decade after everyone assumed the last scion of the Malfoy line was dead an heir emerges to claim the Malfoy fortune. An heir with an unknown story to tell:‘My name is Estella Rose Malfoy. I am the daughter of a Death Eater and a member of the Order of the Phoenix. At my coming of age, I received a letter baring a family seal that I barely remembered. Where it had come from, how it reached me; I will never know. It was from my father and he tasked me to tell the unknown tale that I begin now...’Alternate universe where Hermione is not a war hero.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	1. Prologue

“Estella!”

“Miss Black!”

A cacophony of voices called out through the maelstrom of flash bulbs.

“Is it true you are the Malfoy heir?”

Estella ignored them all whilst James Potter guided her protectively through the crowds of reporters and photographers who lay in wait outside the doors of Gringott’s bank.

She walked purposefully towards the cashier.

“The Malfoy vaults please,” she asked determinedly.

There was an audible gasp from the few clients who had made it through the security into the bank itself.

“You are of course aware Miss that there are blood wards on the Malfoy vaults.”

“I am,”

“You have some documentation to support your claim?”

‘I do,”

“If you would be so kind as to present the documents?”

Estella handed over a letter with an unbroken Malfoy seal. The goblin raised a brow at that. Breaking the seal he read the letter closely.

“I see!” was all the Goblin said. There was one thing that could be said for the Goblins of Gringott’s they understood discretion.

“If you will follow me Miss _Black_. I am afraid the gentlemen will need to remain here and I will require you to present your wand.”

James Potter looked decidedly uncomfortable.

“Are you sure about this ‘Stella?” He asked the brunette, concern creasing his brow.

“Yes! I need to know.”

-o0o-

Estella was taken into the vaults of Gringotts.

“There are a series of vaults it would be prudent to open your father’s vault first. If you would please place your hand on the handle.”

As Estella held out her hand there was a sharp pain. No more than a pin prick, as her skin was punctured and a droplet of blood lubricated the lock. There was an immediate screech of grinding gears as the bolts drew back. Estella almost smirked at the look of disappoint on the goblin’s face. Dormant accounts became the propriety of the bank after a decade and the Malfoy accounts had been dormant for nine and a half years.

Everyone had assumed the Malfoy line to be extinct, yet the vaults had remained sealed and the wards of Malfoy Manor had stayed firmly in place. This had led to rumours of an unknown heir but time passed and no heir came forward to claim the fortune, estimated to be in the billions of galleons.

Then on her 17th birthday Estella had received a letter from a man she had never really known and who she could barely remember. A man vilified as a soulless villain. Now here she was standing in front of his vault.

As the door opened the scene she beheld was akin to the hoard of an avaricious dragon. There was surely more wealth than the national product of a small nation, enough wealth to last several people several lifetimes and this was only her father’s personal vault. There were still the main family vaults. That however, Estella determined, would have to wait for another day. She had not come here for gold she was here to right a wrong. For she agreed with her father in one respect that no matter how the world viewed him, the world needed to know the debt it owed her mother.

She entered the vault and quickly located the dragon hide case he had described. Another drop of blood allowed her to open the case and inspect the documents within.

She quickly scanned the uppermost document it was a certificate of birth for a girl.

‘Estella Rose Malfoy.’

-o0o-

Estella had arrived in Britain an orphan. At the age of 7 years and six months she had become the ward of Harry Potter. For months the child with steel grey eyes and spiral brunette curls had refused to speak to anyone. Though the Potter’s cared for her and ‘Grandma’ Molly made her chocolate cakes and other treats she would speak to no one.

Six months of silence and many healers later it was determined there was no physical reason why Estella could not speak but that, for some reason, she chose not to.

The Potters wondered what she had seen that had so troubled her. They speculated it had something to do with her parents’ death but they could not be sure. No one knew and all mind healing treatments were considered too invasive for a child so it became apparent that unless Estella told them they would never know what happened.

In the end it was James, still little more than a small child himself who had proven the cure. His antics had brought forth laughter. It started with a chortle and then a whisper.

Estella was a beautiful child.‘Like her mother’ uncle Ron would say. Harry could only see his friend in his wards face but Ginny saw it, the mark of Malfoy’s genes. She had his eyes but it was the mannerisms, the steely glare and the smirk that would have told the tale to anyone who thought to look, anyone who thought it possible that Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy could have a child together.

Despite her parentage Harry Potter took to the child, fully able to sympathise with her situation. She became like a daughter to him.

As Estella grew there were a few who suspected she was the ‘Mudblood’s Daughter.’ There were those amongst their Gryffindor peers who looked at the teenage Estella and saw clearly who her mother was.

“She reminds me of Hermione, except for the eyes,” Padma Patel had commented when she met Ginny and Estella in Diagon Alley as they shopped for Estella’s Hogwarts supplies.

It was an encounter with Parkinson that nearly revealed Estella’s secret, though the Potters had guarded it closely. Parkinson saw through it. She was not rude:

“I haven’t seen curls like these since Granger, you are very beautiful and your eyes...” Parkinson stalled and gave Ginny an interrogative look, “you have Malfoy eyes.” Ginny had held her breath while Parkinson considered that statement before the dark haired witch had concluded. “But you couldn’t be Draco’s been dead for years.”

For some reason Pansy had let that pass. Wether she understood who Estella was or not she didn’t say. She did not divulge what she clearly suspected and for that both Estella and the Potters were grateful.

Estella, due to the discretion of a few of her friends, was able to pass her childhood discreetly without the tarnish of notoriety that marked her true name. Now age seventeen she stepped into the limelight as the Malfoy heir and faced the immediate calmer of the public and press who demanded to know her parentage.

-o0o-

Estella picked up the daily prophet on the morning following her trip to Gringotts and steeled herself for the headlines.

The headline itself was simple:

‘Heir to Malfoy Fortune Found’.

It was the speculation that left Estella stunned and vibrating with anger. Some had it she was the illegitimate offspring of Lucius Malfoy, others that she was a distant cousin, some were near to the truth that Draco Malfoy was her father. But she quickly realised that her father had been right. His family’s notoriety would defame her mother if she did not set the record straight.

She thought back to the letter her father had sent her on her seventeenth birthday.

My Dearest Daughter,

_I know that by now you may no longer remember me. I know that you may hate me and may never forgive me. I ask not for your forgiveness only that you read this letter for your mother’s sake._

So the letter began that rocked Estella’s world. The letter where he father begged her to set the story straight so that her mother would get the recognition she so richly deserved.

“ Are you okay?” James asked her recognising that his girlfriend was lost in thought.

“He was right,” was Estella’s response.

“Who was right?” James looked confused.

“My father.”

James Potter had been enamoured of Estella since the age of 8. He didn’t care who her father was, he didn’t care what her name meant to the wider world, all he cared about was protecting her.

_“_ Are you going to tell me what this is all about Estella?”

She sighed, “as yet I barely know but my father tasked me with setting the record straight.”

James scoffed he hadn’t intended to he knew Draco Malfoy was a taboo subject.

“Does he think he was some kind of hero?”

“Perhaps,” Estella said reflectively, “villains don’t see themselves as villains James but it is not that. He claims that it is on my mother’s behalf that the record needs to be set to rights. Look at this article, does anyone even remember my mother’s name? No one knows the pivotal role she played in the fall of Voldemort.”

“How could they Estella? Wasn’t that entirely the point? Your mother was a spy.”

_“_ And my father was a murdered. Yet, he was more than that and he loved my mother more than his own life.”

“Are you okay Stella?”

Harry Potter asked his ward. She shrugged as she signalled the headlines. Harry looked pensieve for a moment.

“I have had much experience with the press. In the end it is usually best to control the narrative. You should hold a press conference. Make a statement-no questions. Tell them who you are but nothing more, at least not for now.”

Thus it was that a few days later. Estella announced to the press.

_“_ My name is Estella Rose Malfoy. I am the daughter of a Death Eater and a member of the Order of the Phoenix. My father was Draco Malfoy, my mother Hermione Malfoy nee Granger and I am an orphan.”

“Miss Malfoy,” the collective call rang out.

“No questions?”Estella’s guardian reminded them all.

“Miss Malfoy,” they persisted.

_“_ You will have your answers in good time. I will be publishing a family history. Until then ladies and gentleman.” Estella stated making it clear the statement was now over.

It took her two years to compile the evidence but finally, two weeks after her 19th birthday. Estella Malfoy began the preface ofher family’s history. ‘The Mudblood’s Daughter.’

_-o0o-_

_The Mudblood’s Daughter -Preface_

_My forbears were as infamous as the Medici. The mere mention of their name was enough to make grown men tremble at the knee. They were marked as generation after generation of ruthless, soulless villains yet that was never true, but it is easy to become a villain when you live by different rules. I am not an apologist. My father and grandfather committed heinous crimes, but they did so in the name of love. They would have burned down the world for the women they loved. Of course, I can hear you think, ‘they did!’ both my father and grandfather loved their wives with an obsessive passion. Guarding their spouses like an avaricious dragon would its horde._

_My grandfather had one mantra, ‘family first’. To the rest of the world he was cold and cruel, but he loved his wife and son dearly. His son looked up to him, hung on his every word and internalised that mantra so that when, as a sixteen year old, he faced the dilemma; do what the world thinks is right or do what will save your family it was only natural that he would chose the latter. That choice condemned him._

_Imagine, if you will, making a choice at the age of sixteen and regretting it for the rest of your days. Knowing that it would make you a pariah but feeling there was no other choice you could make. One thing I know for certain is that my father lived with regret his whole life and, though the world never forgave him, he never forgave himself either. Nothing could atone for what he had done. The only thing that made his life worth living was my mother._

_There are many legends of women who inspired men to fight wars. My mother inspired a man to live, to keep fighting to be with her. To never give up. I expect you understand now how my father’s life ended. I expect that all I need tell you is that my mother predeceased him and that you will infer what came next and why at the tender age of seven years I found myself an orphan._

_I was not just any orphan, I was nameless. My true name so tarnished that my guardians did not dare use it, fearful that vengeance might be met out to a helpless child. So, though I was the heiress to a vast estate my, blood right remained unclaimed._

_I could have kept my secret, lived my life without connection to my infamous title but I could not. My father left me another bequest he begged that I set the record straight. He did not wish for forgiveness or acclaim for himself he wanted the world to know the debt it owed my mother. It is to this end that I strip away the mask I have worn, leave behind the name you have known me by._

_My name is Estella Rose Malfoy. I am the daughter of A Death Eater and a member of the Order of the Phoenix. At my coming of age, I received a letter baring a family seal that I barely remembered. Where it had come from, how it reached me; I will never know. It was from my father and he tasked me to tell the unknown tale that I begin now..._


	2. The Seduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Estella begins the story of her parents through a narrative and series of flashbacks.

My mother would never have counted herself a beauty. Smart ‘yes’ but ‘beautiful’-never. Ironically this was in large part my father’s fault. He had told her often that she was not attractive. In the end she came to believe it. Though he had said it more to convince himself. It was an even greater irony that he himself did not believe his insults to be true.

Still in January 1997 my mother found herself tasked with the most unlikely of assignments, despite her apparent lack of feminine charm. At Professor Snape’s behest she was tasked with the seduction of Draco Malfoy.

Severus Snape arrived at Grimmauld Place Christmas 1996 a changed man. The task Dumbledore had given him weighed heavily upon him.Almost as heavily as that placed on his Godson. The other Order members greeted him cordially enough but there was an unease about them. An unease that spoke of doubt. They doubted him, doubted his role and Dumbledore’s faith in him. They were not the only ones to doubt him and Snape had known it.

Bellatrix Lastrange had grown suspicious of him. He could barely move without her watching him. Snape feared he would soon be compromised...

———————————————————————————————————————————

**Flashback-Grimmauld Place- Christmas1996**

“ _Severus.” Remus greeted the dark haired former potions master, as he joined the other members of the Order around the kitchen table of Grimmauld Place. “What news?”_

_“I have little to report. My duties keep me away from Malfoy Manor and its residents and when I am there...I am of little help.”_

_Arthur Weasley looked at the dark haired wizard quizzically._

_“Bellatrix suspects me. I can barely act at all. We need another set of eyes and ears”_

_“Who did you have in mind?”_

“ _Draco.”_

_“ You think Malfoy will be our ally?” Harry scoffed._

_“He could be turned...” Snape suggested._

_“Your opinion of him is coloured by the fact he is your Godson.” Remus challenged._

_“ Draco Malfoy is the perfect Death Eater. He couldn’t wait to follow in his father’s footsteps.” Harry added his tone beyond doubtful._

_“Dumbledore thought differently. He thought Draco worth saving. He thought he would help us.”_

_“Yeah, right,” Ron scoffed._

_“If properly motivated he will turn.” Snape continued to protest._

_“And what do you consider suitable motivation. Should we kidnap Narcissa Malfoy and hold her in chains in our dungeon.”_

_Snape looked down his nose at Ronald Weasley, an indication that he thought the suggestion ridiculous._

_“He would do anything for the woman he loved.”_

_“Oh seriously, you’re delusional and besides I don’t see how that would help us.”_

_“Ronald be quiet,” Molly Weasley snapped, “go on Severus.”_

_“He would turn for love.”_

_“I fail to see how that helps us.” Harry put in._

_“We need someone to seduce him.” Snape clarified_

_The two younger women at the table shifted nervously._

_“Well don’t look at me dears. I doubt I’m his type.” Molly offered with a self depreciating smile. As Arthur reached out to gently squeeze her hand._

“ _Well I’m his cousin,” Tonks pointed out._

_“You are also my wife!” Remus snapped, make clear the idea was unconscionable ._

_All eyes fell on Ginny._

_“Seriously?” The young redhead questioned, “well I suppose I am a pureblood but...”_

_“No bloody way...” Harry began his face flushed red, his tone mutinous._

_“Actually it was Miss Granger I had in mind.”_

_There was a large bang as Ron jumped to his feet and his chair crashed backwards._

_“You have to be bloody insane... you can’t be suggesting.”_

_“Obviously...” Snape drawled._

_“But he hates her.” Ron spluttered._

“ _Ah, but does he? What do you say Miss Granger? Does my Godson really hate you?”_

_Hermione was preternaturally still as all eyes focused on her._

_“Hermione?” Ron questioned, looking suddenly as if he might be sick._

_Hermione drew a deep breath as she snapped out of her reverie. All the assembled Order members looked at her expectantly._

_“Actually there is something I need to tell you...Draco and I have become friends.”_

_Snape smirked at Ron. A knowing glint in his eye._

_“What?” Ron blustered, “When?”_

_Hermione could not tell them it all but she told them enough. Told them how Draco was desperate and how he had turned to her for comfort._

“ _You’ve been consorting with a Death Eater,” Ron accused his temper flaring._

_“Dumbledore knew...” Hermione began defensively._

_“What?” It was Harry’s turn to look at his friend incredulously._

_“Dumbledore knew. He told me to help Draco. To help him complete his task. He said it was necessary.”_

_“You helped Malfoy bring Death Eaters into Hogwarts?”_

_Harry was looking at Hermione as if he didn’t know her._

_Hermione crossed her arms tightly across her midriff, her head down to hide the slivers of tears in her eyes. Harry eyed her like a traitor._

_“I did what Dumbledore asked. I didn’t know he intended...” she trailed off too distraught to continue._

_“Enough!” Remus yelled, his rich voice ricocheting around the room. “We can not afford to turn on each other. Hermione was not the only one Dumbledore deceived.”_

_“If we can return to the matter at hand?” Snape suggested, with cool condescension. “ We need a way to throw Hermione into Draco’s path.”_

-o0o-

What few sat around that Christmas table knew was that my mother and father had already had a romantic encounter before that day. Hermione knew things about Draco Malfoy, things that she had kept to herself. Things that made Snape’s suggestion much less ridiculous than the others at that table supposed. There was good reason for Snape to think my mother would be the key to my father’s defection.

——————————————————————————————————————————-

**Flashback:Hogwarts-December 1996**

_She followed him heedless of the fact that he had gone into the male bathroom,_

_“You’re not allowed in here,” he told her knowing full well that Hermione Granger would not be deterred by anything he might say. He considered levelling his wand at her but part of him felt he deserved whatever she threw at him, a deeper, darker part of him didn’t even care if she killed him._

_She flew towards him like a locomotive at full steam her hands crashing into his chest and forcing him backwards into the shower stall, the shower immediately sprang to life drenching them both in hot water. Neither of them noticed or cared._

_“How could you Draco Malfoy?” She shouted at him, “how could you do such a thing? She nearly died.”_

_He said nothing, he didn’t even bother to ask who she was talking about, he knew. Instead he just stared at her marvelling at how magnificent she was in her righteous indignation._

_“Answer me damn you,” she pushed him again, “answer me!” she screamed as she began to beat his chest. They were both drenched now his white shirt transparent from the steaming hot torrent that was engulfing them. He raised his forearms to shield himself from her onslaught. That was when she saw it. Black and ominous in its darkness, the inky stain on his skin visible through the cloth of his translucent shirt sleeve._

_She snatched his arm, he tried to pull it away, but what did it matter now? She had seen it._

_Suddenly Hermione recalled Harry’s words;_

_‘He's a Death Eater. He's replaced his father as a Death Eater! ... In Madam Malkin's. She didn't touch him, but he yelled and jerked his arm away from her when she went to roll up his sleeve. It was his left arm. He's been branded with the Dark Mark.’_

_Hermione had not wanted to believe it then. She didn’t want to believe it now._

_“No!” she shook her head, her water drenched curls flying around her face. “No you can’t be.”_

_As he looked down into her face he saw the teardrops form at the corners of her eyes, falling to mingle with those water droplets that had gather like dew in her upper lashes._

_“No you can’t be? I believed in you.” She murmured, a tone of despair lacing her voice as if she cared._

_Draco felt something inside himself snap. He knew he owed Hermione Granger nothing but the look of betrayal on her face broke him.He pulled his arm away dragging his hands through his hair. Grasping fist fulls of it as if he would tear it from its roots and in desperation he screamed._

_Draco’s body was wrecked through with heart wrenching sobs. Hermione should have turned and fled. She should have been running to Dumbledore but she didn’t. That scream was so primal, so raw, so desperate she felt she had to comfort him anyway she could._

_She eased her arms around his waist and hugged him to her but he collapsed at her feet. She tried to lift him but he was dead weight. He was almost catatonic with despair. So she cradled his head against her, running her fingers over and over down his now slick blond hair._

_Hermione stood there, cradling Draco Malfoy in her arms for what seemed like an eternity. She knew she couldn’t leave him like this, yet she couldn’t seek help either._

_“Malfoy!” she tried to rouse him._

_“Draco!” she tried again, tilting his head to try and make eye contact. She ran her hand gently across his face, ghosting over his jaw and he looked at her. Finally there was some form of recognition. Looking at him, in that moment, she instantly forgave all he had ever done to her. Perhaps she was too compassionate but like this, vulnerable and broken, she couldn’t help it. She didn’t know whether it was out of kindness or some other emotion but she bent forward and kissed his forehead and then, Merlin forgive her,she gently kissed his lips._

_He responded with a hunger and fire that was devastating. Like no one had every shown him tenderness and he craved it. He broke down her defences, burnt her determination to hate him, shattered the moral certainty that she had built around her. The certainty that all Death Eaters were evil. The certainty that Draco Malfoy was an evil bastard. Suddenly she wanted, no she needed, to save him._

_“Help me Granger,” he pleaded._

_The desperation in his eyes destroyed her. When days later Dumbledore approached her with a proposal. When he asked her to help Draco she already knew she would._

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies in advance no one proof reads my work but me and I am rubbish at it!


End file.
